Stamford school board takes steps to protect whistle-blowers

Published 5:08 pm, Wednesday, March 16, 2016

STAMFORD — A group of school board members have taken initial steps to protect whistle-blowers after several accusations of retaliation and lawsuits filed against the district in recent years.

The Board of Education’s Policy Committee began discussing a potential policy Tuesday night as part of the board’s ongoing efforts to address what has been called a culture of fear in the district, in which staff members have said they were concerned about retribution if they reported improper activities.

“This is another step toward cleaning up the culture of retaliation,” board member Michael Altamura said Wednesday. “It’s a way to tell the teachers and our employees that we want an open book. If there’s something wrong, come to us.”

The district’s personnel guidelines contain no policy explicitly protecting whistle-blowers, said David Mannis, the committee chairman.

“A question for us, really, is should people be protected for calling someone out for violating our policy?” Mannis asked at Tuesday night’s meeting. “We’re talking about a lot of stuff you can get wrong — thousands of things you can get wrong. For me, that implies a certain risk.”

As city employees, district staff comes under the same whistle-blower protection policies as other municipal workers. The city law and human resource departments did not immediately respond for comment on what protections, if any, are afforded to municipal employees.

Retaliation accusations

The former head of the district’s English Language Learner, or ELL, program filed a lawsuit in January 2015 in state Superior Court, claiming she faced retaliation after she spoke out about the program’s mismanagement.

Kristina Lawson, who managed the program from July 2010 to January 2013, claimed in the lawsuit that after she refused to certify the district’s compliance with state and federal ELL guidelines, some of her responsibilities were removed and her position was ultimately eliminated.

Lawson had accused the district of over-counting the number of students eligible for ELL support, and therefore, received more federal grant money than it should have. She said students were being counted simply because they had “Hispanic-sounding” last names, according to the lawsuit. She claimed the district also counted students who emigrated from countries where English was spoken, such as Jamaica, the lawsuit said.

Lawson claimed to have been reprimanded when she brought her claims to then-Superintendent Joshua Starr, the lawsuit said. She said she was threatened by then-Deputy Superintendent Winifred Hamilton, according to the lawsuit.

“Stamford is a very tight community,” Hamilton said to Lawson, the lawsuit claims. “You have a long career ahead of you. I’d really hate to see something happen to you that would make you unemployable.”

The U.S. Department of Justice reached a settlement with the district in 2012 after an investigation found the ELL program violated the federal Equal Opportunities Act.

Lawson’s position was eliminated along with six others after Hamilton became superintendent and reorganized the district’s central office in early 2013. Lawson’s case is ongoing.

Assistant principals at Stamford High School also made retaliation accusations when they were transferred in 2011 after they questioned the newly hired principal's discipline tactics.

When the assistant principals tried to submit their concerns in writing, Rinaldi recalled, Starr wouldn’t accept their statements.

“He asked us if we understood that reporting your principal is a career-killer,” Rinaldi told The Advocate last May.

Next steps

The committee is expected to review the city’s whistle-blower protection ordinances in the coming weeks, as well as model policies from organizations such as the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education.

If the board decides to enact whistle-blower protections, the Policy Committee will need to pass a resolution. That resolution must then pass two consecutive votes of the full board before it becomes policy.